Residents Reject Educational Diversity Plan

November 30, 1994|By MATTHEW BROWN; Courant Correspondent

BERLIN — If the local school system isn't broken, residents asked Tuesday, why fix it with regionalization?

Berlin residents at a special town meeting voted 40-32 Tuesday against the Region 10 proposal to improve racial diversity and educational quality. The voluntary plan recommends that a variety of programs be shared among school districts in the nine cities and towns of the region.

``This business of diversification is overemphasized,'' resident Michael Steinson said. ``This report is trying to do something other than educating our children.''

Residents debated the plan for more than an hour before voting. Proponents said the initiatives described in the plan -- magnet school programs, shared resources, interdistrict athletic activities -- would create more opportunities for children to learn and socialize with a diverse range of people.

``There's nothing in this report that's going to change academics in Berlin's public schools,'' Clyde Selner said. ``It's trying to correct the one shortcoming in the system. It is an extremely undiverse system. It is a very, very white middle-class community. What this report is saying is, maybe there are other things we can do for our kids.''

Opponents of the plan praised local schools and said regionalization would wrest control of the district from taxpayers, who could be stuck with the bill for the new initiatives.

``It's just another layer of government,'' Frank Ciarcia said. ``The same people are going to be running it in the same way, doing the same old things.''

Deputy Mayor Thomas Veronesi, a member of the regional committee that developed the report, emphasized that participation in any of the initiatives in the report would be voluntary.

``We're voting to accept the philosophy that these things can occur,'' he said. ``We're not committing, we're not devoting resources. We're approving an idea.''

After the vote, Veronesi said he believed that few of the residents understood the report.

``I think it's reflective of the fact that people don't always take time to consider the facts before voting on issues,'' he said. ``I think there was not an understanding. I'd like to know how many people actually read the report.''

Board of education members last week voted 7-2 to approve the plan. But the report also required the approval of the community at the town meeting.

A state law passed last year mandated that towns work together as regions to promote racial diversity and improve educational quality.